Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	act_n	law_n	parliament_n	2,185	5	6.6353	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30478	A vindication of the authority, constitution, and laws of the church and state of Scotland in four conferences, wherein the answer to the dialogues betwixt the Conformist and Non-conformist is examined / by Gilbert Burnet ...	Burnet, Gilbert, 1643-1715.	1673 (1673)	Wing B5938; ESTC R32528	166,631	359

Glasgow But before they went to it a written citation of the Bishops was ordered to be read through all the Churches of Scotland wherein they were cha●ged as guilty of all the crimes imaginable which as an Agape after the Lords Supper was first read after a Communion at Edinburgh and upon it orders were sent every where for bringing in the privatest of their escapes And you may judge how consonant this was to that Royal Law of charity which covers a multitude of sins nor was the Kings Authority any whit regarded all this while Was ever greater contempt put on the largest offers of grace and favor And when at Glasgow His Majesty offered by his Commissioner to consent to the limiting of Bishops nothing would satisfie their zeal without condemning the order as unlawful and abjured But when many illegalities of the constitution and procedure of that Assembly were discovered their partiality appeared for being both Judg and Party they justified all their own disorders Upon which His Majesties Commissioner was forced to discharge their further sitting or procedure under pain of Treason but withal published His Majesties Royal intentions to them for satisfying all their legal desires and securing their fears But their stomachs were too great to yield obedience and so they sate still pretending their authority was from CHRIST and condemned Episcopacy excommunicated the Bishops with a great many other illegal and unjustifiable Acts. And when His Majesty came with an Army to do himself right by the Sword GOD had put in his hands they took the start of him and seised on his Castles and on the houses and persons of his good Subjects and went in a great body against him Now in this His Majesty had the Law clearly of his side For Episcopacy stood established by Act of Parliament And if this was a cause of Religion or a defence of it much less such as deserved all that bloud and confusion which it drew on let all the World judg It is true His Majesty was willing to settle things and receive them again into his grace and upon the matter granted all their desires but they were unsatisfiable upon which they again armed But of this I shall not recount the particulars because I hope to see a clear and unbyassed narration of these things ere long Only one Villany I will not conceal at the pacification at Berwick seven Articles of Treaty were signed But the Covenanters got a paper among them which passed for the conditions of the agreement though neither signed by his Majesty nor attested by Secretary or Clerk and this being every where spread his Majesty challenged it as a Forgery and all the English Lords who were of the Treaty having declared upon Oath that no such paper was agreed on it was burnt at London by the hand of the Hangman as a scandalous paper But this was from the Pulpits in Scotland represented as a violation of the Treaty and that the Articles of it were burnt These and such were the Arts the men of that time used to inflame that blessed King 's native Subjects against him But all these were small matters to the following invasion of England An. 1643. For his Majesty did An. 1641. come to Scotland and give them full satisfaction to all even their most unreasonable demands which he consented to pass into Acts of Parliaments But upon his return into England the woful rupture betwixt him and the two Houses following was our Church-party satisfied with the trouble they occasioned him No they were not for they did all they could to cherish and foment the Houses in their insolent Demands chiefly about Religion and were as forward in pressing England's uniformity with Scotland as they were formerly in condemning the design of bringing Scotland to an uniformity with England I shall not engage further in the differences betwixt the King and the two Houses than to shew that His Majesty had the Law clearly of his side since he not only consented to the redress of all grievances for which the least color of Law was alledged but had also yielded to larger concessions for securing the fears of his Subjects than had been granted by all the Kings of England since the Conquest Yet their demands were unsatisfiable without His Majesty had consented to the abolishing of Episcopacy and discharge of the Liturgy which neither his Conscience nor the Laws of England allowed of so that the following War cannot be said to have gone on the principles of defending Religion since His Majesty was invading no part of the established Religion And thus you see that the War in England was for advancing a pretence of Religion And for Scotlands part in it no Sophistry will prove it defensive for His Majesty had setled all matters to their hearts desire and by many frequent and solemn protestations declared his resolutions of observing inviolably that agreement neither did he so much as require their assistance in that just defence of his Authority and the Laws invaded by the two Houses though in the explication of the Covenant An. 1039. it was agreed to and sworn That they should in quiet manner or in Arms defend His Majesties Authority within or without the Kingdom as they should be required by His Majesty or any having his Authority But all the King desired was that Scotland might lie neutral in the quarrel enjoying their happy tranquillity yet this was not enough for your Churches zeal but they remonstrated that Prelacy was the great Mountain stood in the way of Reformation which must be removed and they sent their Commissioners to the King with these desires which His Majesty answered by a Writing yet extant under his own Royal hand shewing That the present settlement of the Church of England was so rooted in the Law that he could not consent to a change till a new form were agreed to and presented to him to which these at Westminster had no mind but he offered all ease to tender Consciences and to call a Synod to judg of these differences to which he was willing to call some Divines from Scotland for bearing their opinions and reasons At that time Petitions came in from several Presbyteries in Scotland to the Conservators of the Peace inciting them to own the Parliaments quarrel upon which many of the Nobility and others signed a Cross Petition which had no other design but the diverting these Lords from interrupting the Peace of Scotland by medling in the English quarrel upon which Thunders were given out against these Petitioners both from the Pulpits and the Remonstrances of the Commission of the General Assembly and they led Processes against all who subscribed it But His Majesty still desired a neutrality from Scotland and tho highly provoked by them yet continued to bear with more than humane patience the affronts were put on his Authority Yet for animating the people of Scotland into the designed War the Leaders of that Party did every where

the lawfulness and usefulness of Episcopacy and that there is nothing in it contrary either to the nature or rules of the Gospel or of right Reason And for any occasional evils may have risen from the restitution of this Government they are with no justice to be fastened on it I know many accuse their revenues and honors thus the spirit that is in us lusteth to ' envy and the eyes of many are evil because the eyes of our pious Progenitors were good But indeed the ravenous Appetites of some Ostriches among us have swallowed down so much of the Churches Patrimony that what remains of it can scarce provoke envy And truly Churchmen bestowing their Revenues well for Alms-deeds relieving the Widows and Orphans and such modest hospitality and decency as may preserve them from the disesteem of the vulgar who measure their value of men much from these externals there were no ground of quarrelling at them were their riches seven-fold increased I am far from the thoughts of patronizing the German Bishops on whom I look as the disgrace of that Order who live in all things like other Princes making Wars and leading out Armies nor do they once consider their Dioceses or what they owe them as Bishops being wholly immersed in secular affairs But for all this I cannot see cause for blaming Churchmen their being either upon the publick Councils of the Kingdom in Parliaments or on His Majesties Secret Councils and that both because Ecclesiastical matters are often in agitation both in the one and the other in which none are so properly to be advised with as Churchmen Occasion may also be frequently given to those who should be presupposed to understand the rules of equity and conscience best to lay them before others who either know them not or mind them too little And finally they are Subjects as well as others and by the clearness is to be expected in their Judgments and the calmness of their minds together with their abstracted and contemplative manner of life they may upon occasions be very prudent Counsellors And why a Prince shall be deprived of the Councils of that which should be the wisest and best part of his Kingdom no reason can be given But for all this I acknowledge there is great hazard from humane Infirmity lest by such medling they be too much intangled in matters extrinsick to them whereby their thoughts may be drawn out from that inward serene and abstracted temper wherein their minds should be preserved both for more spiritual Contemplation and for a more close pursuing the work of the Gospel which ought still to be their chief labor But I must touch this string no more lest you say that the Fox preacheth and methinks our discourse is now near its period Isot. A great many things do yet remain which are untouched and deserve to be better considered for these crude Dialogues poured out a great deal of stuff which it is like the writer never examined And in these you who are his friends must either vindicate him or leave him to the mercy of every severe censurer Eud. His temper is well enough known to us that he is very little sollicitous about the esteem or censures of men and therefore if all the particulars in his Book cannot maintain themselves to the judgments of rational and unprepossessed Readers he thinks them not worthy of his Patrociny And for that little trifling way of writing by tracing every word in a Book or of making good all a man hath said it is a task equally mean unpleasant and laborious and looks like one contending for victory more than truth Were it a worthy thing for us to go and reckon how often and comes about in any of that Pamphleteers long periods or how often he writes false Grammar how harsh his Phrases and how tedious his Periods are or make other such like remarks Alas did we that there were no end and yet such like are many of his reflections But then how beautiful were our discourse if interwoven with those elegancies of poor wretch babler impertinent confident ignorant atheist scoffer and many more of that same strain I know well enough why he used those his design being to make his gentle and simple Readers stand gravely and turn up the white and look pale and affrighted with all those black Imputations he charges on that poor wretch Methinks I hear the censures of the herd when they first read over his Book to this purpose Oh here is a worthy piece full of deep learning and believe me he speaks home he is a sweet man that wrote it be he who he will and was marvellously born through in it all And oh but it is seasonable and well t●ned for he hath answered the whole Book to a word And where we thought it str●ngest he sh●ws its weakness most But I wish the poor wretch r●pentance yet it is a proud Companion and full of disdain but I hope he is humbled for once it were a pity of him for they say he hath some abilities but they are all wrong set and he will may be study to heal the beast of the wound which one of our Champions hath given it but had he any sparks of grace I could yet love him for his good sake It were a worthy attempt to go and satisfie such a gang of Cattle therefore the cavils on the fifth and sixth Dialogue are so poor that it were lost time to consider them and so groundless that he who from reading over the Dialogues themselves is not able to withstand all those tricks of Sophistry would be little bettered by all we could add and therefore we may well quit the Theme and that the rather that we have examined all that is of publick concern in these debates and for any thing that was started which lies out of the way we will leave the discussing of these to the Conformist himself since our design in this Conference was to get mutual satisfaction to our Consciences in these things which the Laws enjoin and if we have gained this we are to leave contending about other things which relate not to us Only if in these greater points it be found that what the Conformist said in the Dialogues was grounded on so much clear and strong reason as we have discovered since our first meeting it is to be presumed that in other things he was not so rash or irrational as to utter such absurdities or errors as the late Pamphlets do charge upon him Phil. Our work was to consider whether absolute subjection was due to the Civil Authority and how far its dominion over our obedience did reach and whether the Principles and Practices of the late times had such evident characters of GOD's acceptance on them that it was an unpardonable crime to reverse that building which they prepared with so much noise and cemented with so much blood and by consequence whether Episcopacy was that accursed thing